Gentle Arch Full Length Mirror 200 x 120cm

Only if the room has a job for it. A 200 x 120 mirror does nothing for your reflection that a 180 does not, because a 180cm mirror already shows anyone up to about 205cm head to toe; what the extra 20cm and 30cm buy is 0.5 square metres more room in the glass. Face it towards a window and a dark hallway or a north-facing living room changes character; stand it on the end wall of a narrow room and the room reads twice as long; lean it in a dressing room and two people get ready in it with the whole room behind them. That is what the Gentle Arch 200 x 120cm is for, and the shallow curve is what stops 2.4 square metres of glass reading as a slab.

Do not buy it for a bedroom under 4m long, where it reflects the bed and the Gentle Arch 180 x 90cm at £239.95 does the room; for a wall with a picture rail, coving or a light fitting lower than 2.2m; for a plasterboard wall where you cannot find two studs or fix a batten; or for an upstairs room reached by a dog-leg stair you have not measured. If height is the reason you are looking at it, stop: the 180 x 105cm shows two people side by side for £90 less.

Float glass weighs 2.5kg per square metre per millimetre, so the 200 x 120cm sheet is 24kg of the 35.3kg and the frame and backing are the rest, which at this size is what keeps 4mm glass flat; the maker uses 4mm in welded steel with a backing to two metres and the delivered weight tells you the backing is doing a third of the work. Hung with the bottom edge 20cm up, a 200cm mirror has the top of its glass at 220cm, so the wall needs 2.2m clear of coving, rails and fittings, and most British ceilings are around 2.4m. Leant at seven degrees the top sits at about 218cm and the base about 24cm out from the wall. The carton is a little over 200 x 120cm and travels on its long edge; measure the front door, any right-angle turn and the half landing before you order for an upstairs room, and read the guide to moving a large mirror.

Above 30kg, hang from a batten. A length of timber screwed across two studs or into brick, levelled before the glass comes anywhere near it, with the mirror's two fitted hanging points dropping onto it, spreads the weight along the wall and lets you hang two metres of glass without balancing it on two screw heads. Where the hanging points land on two timber studs, wood screws straight into the studs work; brick or block otherwise takes two nylon plugs and screws rated above 35.3kg into the brick; dot-and-dab wants long frame fixings through to the masonry. No cavity anchors, ever, at this weight. The hanging points sit below the top of the curve, so measure from the hardware, not the top of the arch; mark with a level; hang with two people lifting from the frame sides and a third to guide if there are stairs. The hanging guide covers each wall and the full length wall mirror page has the weight tables.

Leaning is how a mirror this size most often lives, in a dressing room or against a living-room wall: felt pads under the base, about 24cm out for seven degrees, and an anti-tip strap or a screw eye and cable at the top fitted before anyone leaves the room, because 35kg pulled forward is a serious accident. Never in a hall. The securing guide covers the strap and the leaner mirror page the carpet.

At 2.4 square metres the choice is between a window and a statement. A black Gentle Arch mirror this size reads as a window into a second room: on white, pale grey and sage walls it adds light and depth without adding an object, and black hides the fingerprints two metres of glass collects at the edges where you lift it. A gold Gentle Arch mirror in satin champagne-brass is a very big warm shape before anything is reflected in it; it glows on sage, navy and cream, drifts to warm silver on pure white, and wants a plain wall and a room that can carry it. For most living rooms and halls, black; for a dressing room or a dark room that wants warmth, gold. Same steel, same price. The black arch mirror and gold arch mirror pages have the eight arches in each finish, and the large mirror page covers the 180 and 200cm sizes together.

The Arched 200 x 120cm at 33.2kg and the same £399.95 is the full semicircle, a 60cm-radius curve, for a plain wall that wants more shape; this is the shallow curve for a wall under coving or in a room that is already busy. The 180 x 105cm at 28kg and £309.95 shows two people side by side and fits a wall most rooms have; the 180 x 90cm at 29.8kg and £239.95 is the hallway and single-dresser size. The window designs at 200 x 120cm are 38 to 39kg at the same £399.95 and add bars; the Frameless Rectangular at the same size has no frame at all.

Dispatched within one working day from UK stock and delivered in two to seven working days on a two-person service, to your door and into a ground-floor room where the route allows; free to mainland UK, offshore postcodes quoted by email. One carton: the mirror with its hanging hardware fitted and the safety backing behind the glass, no plugs, screws, batten or strap. Open it the day it arrives with the carton upright and a second person steadying it, slide the mirror out onto a soft surface, check the glass edge to edge in good light and the frame corners, which take the load every time a carton this size is set down, and photograph anything cracked, chipped or marked with the carton and the label within 24 hours; a replacement is dispatched free and the damaged one stays with you. Change of mind is 14 days, unused and in its packaging, at your carriage cost, which at 35kg is real money and the honest reason to measure the wall and the stairs first. The delivery and returns pages have the detail, and every mirror we sell is on the full length mirrors page.